A newbie's question "Variant Chess Effects" was closed as "opinion-based" by a dogpile of experienced members, and as usual there was no welcome or explanation given. So I really don't understand the mentality at work here.
Here's a chess metaphor. In problems, Castling is permitted unless you can prove it's illegal, while En passant is forbidden unless you can prove it's legal. So when someone posts a question, which category does it fall into? I think it falls into the Castling category. The onus is on the experienced member to show why this is not to be permitted.
A few posts are so fragmentary, incorrect, banal or offensive, that they are self-evidently closable without comment. But authors of other ones, like this, who have invested a bit of time and effort to pose the question, deserve more than a block from an apparently trigger-happy mod who apparently had a bad day at work. And if that's not the right interpretation for me to put on the mod behaviour then can the mods please explain. And ideally say hi, and sorry too.
The final irony is that deciding "subjectivity" seems quite subjective. I myself think that the closed question is perfectly capable of being asked in a factual way. There is a risk that mods mistakenly give the impression that anything that asks them to flex their minds in a novel way is frightening, and they must reach for one of the regular excuses for closing down this line of thinking: off-topic, opinion-based, or whatever.
And again: if this impression is not correct, there is an easy solution: the experienced members should explain their decisions.
Thanks for your time.
